Mindhunter (2017-2019) is a fictionalized version of the true crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by retired agent and legendary FBI profiler John Douglas and co-author Mark Olshaker.
Douglas was the inspiration for the main character, Special Agent Holden Ford, played by actor Jonathan Groff. Holt McCallany plays Agent Tench, and Anna Torv stars as the consulting psychologist Wendy Carr.
Series Premise: In the late 1970s, two FBI agents broaden the realm of criminal science by investigating the psychology behind murder and end up getting too close to real-life monsters.
Agent Ford believes he could enhance his negotiation skills if he could delve into the mindset of the hostage takers, as well as applying this newfound knowledge to unsolved serial murder cases.
The show’s tag-line is, “How do we get ahead of crazy if we don’t know how crazy thinks?”
Holden, along with his partner, agent Tench, and psychologist Carr, develop a program designed to allow investigators to anticipate the behaviors of unidentified serial killers by studying the actions of known violent criminals and the psychology of murder. Holden and Tench travel to facilities around the United States to interview incarcerated serial murderers about their crimes and motivations.
In the TV show, the conversations the agents have with the serial killers were based on the recorded dialogue from FBI taped interviews with real-life murderers Edmund Kemper III, Montie Rissell, and Richard Speck. The TV series’ storylines focus on the emotional effects their work has on Holden’s and Tench’s personal lives, as well as on their relationships with their FBI bosses.
I enjoyed watching the fully developed characters and the way the agents interacted with loved ones and the violent deviant murderers they visited in prison. Usually, I would review Mindhunter for teachable moments about FBI policies, procedures, and programs but since I interviewed retired agent and legendary FBI profiler John Douglas on FBI Retired Case File Review episode 222 – Mindhunter, White Supremacist Serial Killer, I’ll let him share his thoughts with you about the show. Here are some of his edited responses regarding the Mindhunter series.
I asked John about his involvement in the production and writing of the series. His answer surprised me.
“I did not have a lot of input into the show itself. They’re just using my book. I wish I did. And in fact, the actors, Holt McCallany in particular, who played my partner, spent time with me and he said, ‘I don’t understand. I keep telling the writers to contact John.'”
Even so, John agreed that the writers got the role of the profilers right, mostly.
“ It’s right. In fact, it’s right from the very first episode where, in season one, this guy in a hostage situation blows himself up, blows his head off. I mean, that’s the only violent piece in the whole two-year series. But that’s true. But at that time, I was a member of the SWAT team. I was actually a sniper. I was not even a negotiator. It was after that I became a negotiator. But the problems I had as a new instructor, that’s all true. In the classroom, what was being taught was true. Going out in the field, you’re no longer an investigator. You’re giving a theory and you’re telling (the police) to refocus their investigation. You’re actually giving directions.”
“When you get to the behavioral analysis unit, we have guns. But we’re not running around, we’re not making the arrest. We’re not usurping the cases of the police. We’re not taking their cases away. We are coaches. We will coach an agent. Say it’s going to be an interrogation of some type. We’ll coach the police officer.
We’ll develop ways of approaches. Proactive techniques. But we will always give credit to where the credit is due. And it’s to the locals, it’s a local case. The local police, their case, their job. I’m not going to be sitting in doing the interrogation.”
I asked him if there was anything the Mindhunter folks got wrong.
“They make some technical mistakes. If you go back and look when they go into the prison, they (Holden and Tench) give their guns to someone, to one of the guards. We never would bring our guns into the prison. We’d leave it locked up out in the car.
But they also give their credentials to the guard, which is wrong. Every single one of these guys we interview, they want to see your credentials. They wanna see who you really are. And so I have a picture of Kemper holding my credentials, looking at me and looking at my credentials.”
Another thing John mentioned about the series was Holden and Tench using a tape recorder or taking notes when interviewing the violent offenders.
“It’s going to be a conversation. They’re able to ask as many questions about me or to me as I’m gonna be asking them. The other thing, I’m not gonna go in with a tape recorder. You’re dealing with people in the prison. They’re paranoid. They don’t trust anybody, including other fellow inmates. They don’t trust correctional personnel. Why should they trust me? So they want to know why do you have a tape recorder? Who’s gonna listen to this?”
John entered prison with no files or notes about the offenders.
“You had to go in there knowing everything about the case backwards and forwards, and then you do your interview, the stuff that you’re interested in, victim selection, pre-offense behavior, post-defense behavior of the offender.”
Overall, John thought Mindhunter was a good TV series. I loved the show and was disappointed it only ran for two seasons.
